Spoon carving may just be an excuse for me to listen to audio books. I’ve liked audio books for a long time but have become a chronic listener since I started spoon carving. Perhaps it was the convenient Blue Tooth unit by friend Ed Reed talked me into buying. This unit hangs around my neck and is so light and comfortable I could wear it all the time which I now do while gardening, carving or even walking the beach.

The library has lots of audio books to download for free. And, if I really want a specific book right this minute I can use Audible.com.

What I find is that I associate certain spoons with the book I was listening to at the time.

Stonewall ladle

I look at this ladle and can’t get Rebel Yell, a biography of Stonewall Jackson out of my mind. Jackson was a true military genius but his failure to be on time at the Seven Days cost the South a real chance to deliver a knockout blow.

Any Charles Dickens audio book will take one through a bunch of spoons which means there are several that remind me of Nicholas Nickleby. It’s a wonder I haven’t named the spoons of those several hours Squeers, Smike, Noggs, or Madame Mantalini. No author comes up with better names than Dickens.

Squeers spatula

There are some amazingly talented book readers who can make the stories dance in front of you like holograms. My favorites are Simon Vance, Frederick Davidson and Katherine Kellgren.

Ms Kellgren reads a series of YA novels about Bloody Jack, a 19th century girl who is orphaned on the streets of London and talks her way onto a British Naval frigate disguised as a boy. I’m not sure if I would have thought it was as good if I had read it. But in Katherine Kellgren’s hands, it’s a winner.

Katherine’s spoon

My fall back is always Simon Vance reading the Patrick O’Brian’s series about Royal Navy Captain Jack Aubrey and his surgeon/friend Stephen Maturin. There are 21 books in this series. I’ve read them three times and am half way through the audio books.

John LeCarre: The Biography was interesting. I like his books but it turns out I didn’t like him very much. Won’t name any spoons after him.

Jack’s pudding spoon

Of course with Dearie:The Remarkable Life of Julia Childs I focused on serving spoons. I had never paid much attention to Julia but I loved author Bob Spitz’s book on the Beatles so I gave it a try. It’s a terrific bio of a very interesting and influential twentieth century personality. I was compelled to go to Youtube to watch some of her old shows.

Dearie

Inferno: The World At War 1939-1945 by Max Hastings was good for a few spoons. Hastings kept me on the edge of my seat as he managed to personalize a macro history of WWII.

Inferno

The book of the moment is 17 Carnations: The Royals, the Nazis and the Biggest Cover-up in History by Andrew Morton. If you are one who doesn’t believe in conspiracy theories and cover ups do yourself a favor and give this a read or a listen.

One Response to “Audio Spoons”

I LOVE audiobooks while routine carving esp. sanding. Great for gardening, too (I use a tiny mp3 player ~1″ high), all boring chores and sometimes when I’m too awake to sleep but too sleepy to eye-read.

Recent faves: Louise Penny’s Inspector Armand Gamache series. Doc by Maria Doria Russell, very well read story of John Henry (Doc) Holiday in Dodge City – I’d never have guessed that he was a tubercular dentist from Georgia. Then there was The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents by always amusing Terry Pratchett. On the Move (Oliver Sack’s autobiography). I agree totally about Dearie (Julia Child biography) – fascinating and totally unexpected life story – it drove me to facebook to watch some episodes of her first tv series The French Chef. I could go on but probably shouldn’t 🙂